The Irish Banking Bother: /Anglo 10 /Gardaí raid Anglo offices/ AIB '08 results 2nd March

Why did Fintan Drury resign from the Anglo board last summer?

Ehh... tonys why do you suspect that coc wouldn't know a destroyed financial system ? Aren't banks afraid to lend to mildly risky ventures and isn't it true that functioning businesses needing some credit to tide them over to the next spending spree (easter/mother's day/father's day etc.) simply don't have the money to give away.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ehh... tonys why do you suspect that coc wouldn't know a destroyed financial system ? Aren't banks afraid to lend to mildly risky ventures and isn't it true that functioning businesses needing some credit to tide them over to the next spending spree (easter/mother's day/father's day etc.) simply don't have the money to give away.

A) Because it thinks our financial system IS destroyed, when its not, it’s still working.
B) Because it thinks there was anything the Government could have done with Anglo that would have prevented the “Anglo story” coming out.

A + B or A or B means that it doesn’t know what it’s talking about.

BTW, lovely shape that pyramid, almost perfect.

"It's still working" I would say is a relative statement. Working for whom? There are a lot of businesses goign out of business - they might have overstretched themselves during the Boom .... I'd imagine a lot of businesses who don't have plenty of shekels in the coffers won't survive too easily in this climate. Not that that's so bad because you see a lot of established places fretting less than others.



That triangle is ALL our friend my friend - if you see imperfections in it perhaps you should check your eyeball for a mote

We used to have the Ard Taoiseach here to tell that everything was fine every day. His faith sustained him ( and us ). Now he is out on the streets demonstrating against the grant cuts.

I hate to think what you will be doing this time next year tonys.

cactus flower wrote:

We used to have the Ard Taoiseach here to tell that everything was fine every day. His faith sustained him ( and us ). Now he is out on the streets demonstrating against the grant cuts.

I hate to think what you will be doing this time next year tonys.

No you don't.
I fully expect this time next year I'll be doing exactly the same as I'm doing now, only I'll be better at it.

tonys wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

"It's still working" I would say is a relative statement. Working for whom? There are a lot of businesses goign out of business - they might have overstretched themselves during the Boom .... I'd imagine a lot of businesses who don't have plenty of shekels in the coffers won't survive too easily in this climate. Not that that's so bad because you see a lot of established places fretting less than others.



That triangle is ALL our friend my friend - if you see imperfections in it perhaps you should check your eyeball for a mote

"I am not a number, I am a free man!" Patrick McGoohan's character Number Six shouted at the "triangle" at the beginning of every episode of The Prisoner and you know I think he was right.

Well can't you answer my first point - who is the financial system working for ? I'd say we all know a few businesses that are in need of moolah and can't get it at the moment - or do you think that's by and large propaganda by the ... Oppostion or whoever ?

Auditor #9 wrote:

tonys wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

"It's still working" I would say is a relative statement. Working for whom? There are a lot of businesses goign out of business - they might have overstretched themselves during the Boom .... I'd imagine a lot of businesses who don't have plenty of shekels in the coffers won't survive too easily in this climate. Not that that's so bad because you see a lot of established places fretting less than others.



That triangle is ALL our friend my friend - if you see imperfections in it perhaps you should check your eyeball for a mote

"I am not a number, I am a free man!" Patrick McGoohan's character Number Six shouted at the "triangle" at the beginning of every episode of The Prisoner and you know I think he was right.

Well can't you answer my first point - who is the financial system working for ? I'd say we all know a few businesses that are in need of moolah and can't get it at the moment - or do you think that's by and large propaganda by the ... Oppostion or whoever ?

No one said this was going to be easy, but it will & maybe even is, getting better.

If it's ok with everyone, as a fan of the Prisoner (but not as good a fan as tonys is) I think some of these posts belong in a potentially interesting cultural television thread of their own.

Thread locked for a short second.


Prisoner McGoohan Triangle posts moved here

Two reports out today ... good cop Dermot Ahern on Morning Ireland this morning saying the 10 investors should be dragged out of the shadows if there is a legal way about doing it.

Legal ??? Why don't we making a fucking law to drag them out - it was fairly handily skipped through the Oireachtas when we needed to nationalise Angola Irish Bank ....

Why do we need to pull them out on public display? If they have done something illegal the Director of Corporate Enforcement can contact the Director of Public Prosecutions and criminal charges, which by their very nature are in the public domain, can be brought against them. If they haven't done anything illegal they have a right to confidence in their business affairs.

Whether it should be illegal or not is a different matter. However, I suspect we would all appreciate the confidentiality which should be afforded to us in our affairs if we have in fact not done anything illegal.

Apparently the legal impediment to naming these fuckers is the bank's confidentiality agreement, and thus naming them could lead to a civil suit.

There's a simple way around this. There's two actually. Dáil privilege, name them in da house. Or do it the old fashioned way, have the Gardaí arrest each and every one of them under suspicion of having committed fraud and have the media follow the Gardaí around when they do it.

johnfás wrote:

Why do we need to pull them out on public display? If they have done something illegal the Director of Corporate Enforcement can contact the Director of Public Prosecutions and criminal charges, which by their very nature are in the public domain, can be brought against them. If they haven't done anything illegal they have a right to confidence in their business affairs.

Whether it should be illegal or not is a different matter. However, I suspect we would all appreciate the confidentiality which should be afforded to us in our affairs if we have in fact not done anything illegal.

The reason Johno, that we now need to drag them out of the shadows is because Kenny has been going around telling everyone that they are not being named becaues FF are protecting them, he knows that's not true, he knows they can not be named by the Government, he knows he's using these people without knowing whether they did anything wrong or not, but does he give a shit about any of that? no Johno, he most certainly does not.

It was a rhetorical question, tonys. Just in case you hadn't realised .

I'll put such question marks in a different colour in future. It can be your and my secret code. OK?

johnfás wrote:

Paul R wrote:

As a matter of interest, can anyone explain why Anglo (at least) and probably also Irish Nationwide and IL&P aren't just put into examinership until such time as an examiner could make sense of their finances? Wasn't that the reason, that examinership was introduced in the first place - i.e. the Goodman empire?

No examinership was introduced, at the time of the Goodman issues, to prevent the collapse of the Goodman Group. It exists to put a company which cannot pay its debts, but has a reasonable chance of survival if reordered, under the protection of the court. In other words you have to show the company is less than solvent, not simply an attempt to make sense of the company.

Thanks for the reply John. I am not sure if officially Anglo Irish meets the criteria for examinership you mention - indeed, as their accounts seem to be essentially fiction, it probably would be hard to prove either of the criteria. That said, if Anglo Irish had been left to face the markets without the Government's guarentee, I suspect they'd now be out of business.

That is exactly it Paul R. Examinership lasts 70 days and you have to persuade the court that after 70 days the company will be able to stand on its own two feet. That simply wasn't the case in the context of Anglo Irish Bank so it would have instead faced liquidation. The argument was that had that been allowed to happen it would have brought the rest of the Irish banking system down with it. I'm not qualified to have an opinion on whether or not that is/was the case.

johnfás wrote:

That is exactly it Paul R. Examinership lasts 70 days and you have to persuade the court that after 70 days the company will be able to stand on its own two feet. That simply wasn't the case in the context of Anglo Irish Bank so it would have instead faced liquidation. The argument was that had that been allowed to happen it would have brought the rest of the Irish banking system down with it. I'm not qualified to have an opinion on whether or not that is/was the case.

My personal suscpion is the rescue of Anglo Irish had created a real moral hazard in the banking system. In a couple of years, when all this has died down a bit, I suspect, the bank managers of some bank will be very tempted to come up with a scheme to plough huge chunks of the bank's money into the next sub-prime equivalent. If the "investment" comes up trumps, they all get large personal bonuses and pose as business genuises. If the "investment" is a dud, they don the "green jersey" and rush off to the Department of Finance where they do "the entire banking system will fail" routine and the government uses tax payers money to bail them out. But then, maybe I am too cynical...

Has anyone got a definitive answer on the Capital Gains issue?

Nope, I even asked a tax consultant yesterday who said that the issue is so complex that it would likely have to go before the courts for a definitive answer.

coc wrote:

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

What age is "Open Window"? 14? His post should be circulated to every school in the country as an example of flowery writing at its worst. Some people shouldn't be let near a thesaurus.

Where is Audi's Pyramid of poxy responses when I need it? You've nicely dismissed the form of Open Window's post but ignored the substance. I will summarise in non-flowery prose.

1) The Government have destroyed our financial system in how they dealt with Anglo.
2) Soon they will have destroyed the whole economy.
3) As a result we should contact our elected reps from Government parties and remind them they will be made pay for their corruption and/or ineptitude.

Is that clear enough for the media monitoring unit?

I don't see any substance to OpenWindow's post. It is just bald assertions of his hysterical analysis without one fact to back it up. With that said my reply was ad hominem - 'my bad' mar a dearfa. OpenWindow did not post on this thread and the comment came from another site so I allowed myself a bit of lee way - I just couldn't resist it to be honest.

I think Ahern nailed Kenny on Morning Ireland but that he didn't make it clear enough. Enda Kenny knows that Cowen has come in contact with at least some of the wealthy businessmen. Kenny is trying to make political capital out of this by hyping it up as something it isn't.

Meanwhile, to the rest of the world, it makes it looks like Kenny is alleging that our government has been involved in a corrupt conspiracy. Kenny is single-handedly aggravating the economic and reputational damage caused by the scandals in financial institutions. Kenny is seeking to impute the Government in crooked dealings. He can say he is not doing that but that is what the rest of the world will see. He is effectively using tax-payers money for his own political ends much like the bankers. It will be us who pay for any further damage to our reputation and we will pay it from what is left of our wallets. In summary Kenny is a f_cking eejit to carry on like this.

johnfás wrote:

I think really I have to disagree with you there. There is nothing wrong with the Minister for Finance having dinner with directors of one of the major banks. Obviously in the current circumstance it may appear dodgy but frankly major business interests in any given sector have a right to be heard by Government as do major non business interest groups.

I don't think we would be hearing the same complaints if it was discovered that the Minister for Justice had a private dinner with the Director of Amnesty International, though I am sure that it has happened or the Minister for Enterprise with a consumer group. The same must apply to business interests, both have a right to be heard.

That said, I do agree that a cosy consensus can occur and that when a Minister is meeting too regularly or taking too much from an interest group, be that whoever, then a conflict of interest can arise. That was perhaps the case in the current circumstance, it certainly seems to have been the case in respect of construction lobby groups. However, I don't think that this report in particular brings anything to the table in terms of establishing that as the case.

Beyond which the term private dinner which you naturally italicise is a spin put on it by the Irish Independent. I mean they are hardly going to bring the Minister for Finance for dinner in McDonalds are they.

Same issue, different thread. My understanding of a private engagement is that one is acting there in an individual and not an official capacity. A private engagement would not be in the official diary, and no records of it would be kept in the Department - who was there, any speeches or representations made etc. would not be recorded. The public would not have knowledge of it, unless by accident.

In my view, to attend such a social dinner at the invitation of a bank known to be in difficulties, when one is Minister of Finance, would be ill advised in the extreme and open to the kind of inferences that the Independent is putting on it, of an over-cosy relationship. I think you are not seeing the wood for the trees here johnfás. A Minister has responsibility to maintain a distance and avoid any situation that could lead to suggestions of bias.

In a previous job, I always turned down invitations to social engagements and junkets of any kind offered by persons or companies who might have benefitted from my actions in an official capacity.

I think we have become so inured to inappropriate behaviour and relationships that people don't even know what proper standards are.

Your own posts are quite balanced on it, Zhou and I think you've made an excellent point earlier on that Cowen is as likely to not know these people as he is his own family so what FF need to do now is diffuse this somehow.

Why Cowen said he didn't know these people in the first place is staggering and possibly slipped off his tongue at the time. On the other hand I'll say maybe he doesn't know them either - there's no evidence of it. Kenny might be whatever you think but Cowen walked into the swampy bog and now has to pull himself out. To me Kenny is justified in the goading because many of them were calling for transparency and opening the loan book and that wasn't obliged them and if they had they might not be in this now.

It's a pickle - how do you see it panning out ? Denial and Kenny-baiting until the names do come out finally ? Don't you think that instance of Cowen in the Dáil stating he didn't know those people will be explained away casually ?

In Open Windows case he was expressing anger which is how I feel about it myself and I'm not alone. My point is that transparency is needed and too much is getting hidden and swept under the carpet which is very damaging for us as a nation as there needs to be trust. More and more ALL politicians are being trusted LESS and LESS.

I think yoganmahew on the Pin is an acute poster and here's what he says about it.

Quote :

If they were engaged in a scheme to artificially manipulate Anglo's share price, they have committed a crime. If 25% of the loans was originally recourse and the terms were changed by their refusal to pay once the bet had gone bad, they may have defrauded shareholders.

There are still many 'ifs' about this; it is not possible to make an individual judgement based on facts.

It may well be that they entered into what they thought was a 'dig-out' arrangement, but ignorance of the law is no defense.

Aside from anything else, their other share dealings in Anglo need to be investigated as they most certainly had insider knowledge.

edit: speaking of which, anyone remember the rather strange purchase by Sean FitzcapitalP and Lar Bradshaw of a large amount of Anglo shares late last year?
http://www.thepropertypin.com/viewtopic.php?p=211668#p211668

Auditor #9 wrote:

Your own posts are quite balanced on it, Zhou and I think you've made an excellent point earlier on that Cowen is as likely to not know these people as he is his own family so what FF need to do now is diffuse this somehow.

Why Cowen said he didn't know these people in the first place is staggering and possibly slipped off his tongue at the time.

He Didn't say he "didn't know these people", he said he doesn't know who "they" are.

tonys wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

Your own posts are quite balanced on it, Zhou and I think you've made an excellent point earlier on that Cowen is as likely to not know these people as he is his own family so what FF need to do now is diffuse this somehow.

Why Cowen said he didn't know these people in the first place is staggering and possibly slipped off his tongue at the time.

He Didn't say he "didn't know these people", he said he doesn't know who "they" are.

What's the difference ? Time to go to the Dáil transcripts....

Irish Times:

Quote :

Mr Cowen said today: “I want to make it very clear I don’t know the names of any of the people involved in this process, nor is it my function

“In relation to this matter, as Minister for Finance… it was clear it was a meeting perhaps in March when the Governor would indicate to me that there was a situation developing in relation to the contracts for difference issue in Anglo Irish Bank,” Mr Cowen added.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0217/breaking69.htm

None of the cabinet know the identity of the investors.

As Youngmanhew said, there are a lot of "ifs". It is quite possible that the investors were approached individualy and did not know the full story. It is also possible that they did not have any legal advice. If they did not have knowledge of the details of the overall situation then it could be very hard to say they had the mental intention to deceive the stock market. They could have been told that the bank was in a position to offer this deal, that the books showed the bank was undervalued, that the bank thought the loan would be adequately secured on the loan and that if they could stump up €400K interest per month they could get in on the deal of a life time. They might have said - "is this legit?". If so then they might have been entitled to trust their banker's advice. They might even have been entitled to trust their advice anyway. Perhaps a bank customer is entitled to rely on a banker not to involve him in any financial arrangements which the banker with his specialist knowledge should know to be illegal.

With all those "ifs" still hanging around it would be wrong to villify these private individuals to save the Government and the help the State. It is rightly unconstitutional to bring in laws that target specific individuals. It is rightly illegal to deprive specific individuals of their rights for the good of the nation. Maybe Enda Kenny would like to go all Guantanamo on their asses but that won't work.

I think Kenny will be rightly slated over this. He has already started his back-tracking saying he has no evidence to connect FF to the investors. Meanwhile, Labour will continue to flourish and Eamonn Gillmore will cement his position as the real leader of the opposition. When it transpires that these investors were known to FF then there will be a negative association. FF cannot avoid that.

Kenny is cashing his chips in at the wrong time and in the wrong way. I think his behaviour is a product of the bitterness that has naturally developed in FG as a result of them being out of power for 12 years. FG smell blood and are showing their fangs. It's not very pretty. It's also quite surprising given how much Varadker and Reilly had toned down their attacks.